As everyone knows, the Second Vatican Council was an extraordinary event, with ramifications not simply for Catholicism but for virtually the entire world. The conciliar theologians knew the tradition well and were eager to preserve it, while simultaneously fostering a renewed interest in Scripture, entering ecumenical relations with other Christians, and initiating inter-religious dialogue, particularly with Judaism.
But to express one’s admiration for Vatican II is not to say that the council is beyond the need for further balancing. As with any council, emphasis on some elements of Christian doctrine meant that others would fall, inevitably, into the shadows.
One area where Vatican II is weak is its theology of priesthood. Some may remember the distinguished Lutheran historian Martin Marty’s bon mot: The “winners” at Vatican II were the bishops and the laity; the “losers” were the priests and religious. While exaggerating, Marty was making a valid point. For while Vatican II offered theological advances in understanding the episcopacy and the laity, “no fresh rationales for being a priest or a religious emerged” from the council. And the reception of the council’s decree on the priesthood, Presbyterorum Ordinis (On the Ministry and Life of Priests), has been tepid at best.
Yves Congar, one of the principal conciliar experts, joined work on that decree only after the original draft had been completed. Looking around the room, he commented, “There was no one here of the stature of [Karl] Rahner or even Parente.” (Archbishop Parente worked in the Holy Office. Congar gradually warmed to his theology.) Congar concluded, “I am afraid that [the decree] will be more pious and verbose, not sufficiently theological or ontological.”
In 1975, ten years after the council closed, Congar’s opinion of the decree had not changed. “The [council] Fathers seemed to have forgotten priests. There was certainly a text, very mediocre, a clumsy message, drawn up in haste in the final period of the council. I protested: priests do not need a lecture, only for someone to tell them who they are, what is their mission in the world of today.”
Even though Congar worked on the revised draft of the decree, he nonetheless concluded, “I must admit this text does not correspond exactly to the expectations of priests. I have had to explain it many times.” Rare is the priest who has found Presbyterorum Ordinis to be intellectually or spiritually nourishing. It has always been considered one of the weaker conciliar documents.
Is there a way to overcome this weakness?
When one studies the journals of those involved with the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), it is clear there was a determined attempt to keep the pope within the Church. For there was a fear that the bishop of Rome (with Pius XII as archetype) was becoming an isolated, solipsistic figure, unrelated to the rest of the episcopacy.
One way of rectifying this problem was to retrieve a strong sense of the episcopal college, a notion that was vibrant in the early Church. The primacy could not be jeopardized, of course. The papacy, however, always exists within the order of bishops. This is one reason why the draftsman of Lumen Gentium, the Louvain theologian Gérard Philips, generally reserved the phrase “head of the Church” for Christ while normally referring to the pope as “head of the college.”
Philips, who was also moderator of the crucially important Theological Commission, was a centrist theologian. As he confided to his journal, “My intervention has not been revolutionary and there are probably some who regret it.” But Philips did insist on one point—bishops’ juridical authority comes with episcopal consecration, not through delegation by the bishop of Rome as the encyclical Mystici Corporis had taught in 1943.
Philips’s intention was to emphasize a strong episcopacy within which the pope was embedded. He insisted on this point even in a private audience with Paul VI which, according to reports, became a bit testy. Philips was convinced that Paul was a supporter of collegiality. But he was under tremendous pressure from certain bishops who believed that any emphasis on collegial authority placed papal primacy in danger. Some wished to reduce collegiality to “charitable solicitude,” with the pope occasionally soliciting advice from other bishops. Philips, on the contrary, argued that the powers of teaching, sanctifying, and governing are all bestowed with consecration. Indeed, Philips wrote that Vatican II’s assertion that jurisdiction is intrinsically linked with episcopal consecration was “the most important theological progress advanced by the council.”
This is an extraordinary statement from a man who worked on every major conciliar document. But Philips was convinced that if the order of bishops was to be a meaningful body in the Catholic Church, then authority must belong to it ex officio and not by papal delegation. As he liked to say, Peter is first, protos (Matt. 10:2), but he is not alone. Collegiality was essential to ensure that the Church would overcome any tendency toward papal absolutism.
The point of this discussion has been to show the high stakes conflict that took place over episcopal collegiality—a pitched theological battle that lasted for several years. In comparison, conciliar work on priesthood was almost an afterthought. Of course, the council did highlight the priesthood of the faithful, a theme found in Scripture (1 Pet.) and emphasized by Luther at the time of the Reformation. Vatican II’s task was to accent the baptismal priesthood, but without jeopardizing the priesthood of Christ’s ministers. Philips accomplished this in a sophisticated manner—showing how both the ministerial and the baptismal priesthood participate in the one priesthood of Jesus Christ.
But little more of substance was written about the ministerial priesthood. And while it made theological sense to embed the papacy within the episcopal college, should not the episcopacy have been clearly embedded within the presbyteral order? Just as the pope is, to some extent, responsible to the college of bishops, so the bishops should have been more clearly responsible to the college of presbyters (and through the pastors, to the laity as well).
The danger today is that bishops are often considered an isolated caste, separated from their priests. Evidence for this is readily available if one consults the National Study of Catholic Priests conducted by the Catholic Project of the Catholic University of America. In extensive interviews, priest after priest expressed fear of a false accusation, knowing that, often enough, they would be denied due process because of the Dallas Charter and its norms. With its lack of due process, the Charter has opened a yawning chasm between bishops and priests. Indeed, the National Study found that an astonishing 76 percent of priests mistrust the American episcopacy. This grave estrangement is unhealthy for the life of the Church.
It did not help matters that bishops failed to apply the Charter to themselves. Even now, after the 2023 promulgation of Vos Estis by Pope Francis, the process for dealing with accused bishops is much more expeditious than that dealing with accused priests. In all of this, bishops seem to occupy, ironically, the very space once thought to be occupied by the pope: isolated and aloof. What is needed is a stronger theological relationship between bishops and priests, a relationship never explored by Vatican II.
I once spoke with a theologically astute bishop who told me that he was the judex of Catholicism in his diocese. I responded that while he was the ultimate judge, he was surely not the only one. He had theologians, a council of priests, and a council of laity—all of whom were, in different degrees, judices of Catholicism. I later wished I had recommended Newman’s preface to his Via Media of the Anglican Church.
For there, Newman presents a dynamic, polycentric view of authority with the entire church—bishops, priests, laity—responsible for the process of guarding, conserving, and developing the faith. Theology has a particularly important role, for as Newman says, “Theology is the fundamental and regulating principle of the whole Church system.”
Of course, no council does everything. And Vatican II was an extraordinary achievement on many fronts. But if a one-sided papalism emerged from Vatican I, is it not possible that a one-sided episcopalism has emerged from Vatican II?
One theological task today is to embed bishops more clearly within their diocesan presbyterates. The wisdom of priests, theologians, and laity must help guide their actions—with more than “charitable solicitude”—otherwise the Church will be left with disenfranchised priests and an isolated episcopal caste.
One small illustration of this: Recently, the number of American bishops who are chosen from religious orders has been increasing. I would respectfully offer this suggestion to them: That you have affection and fraternal ties with your former communities is entirely understandable. But you are now members of the presbyterates of your dioceses. Consider putting away the religious habits and dropping the religious initials. Embrace solidarity with your own diocesan priests—and make clear your unity with them.
The isolated episcopacy was also forcibly on display when panicky bishops passed the Dallas Charter a quarter century ago. At least the Charter has had the merit, as the National Study reveals, of highlighting a crucial lacuna of Vatican II—the lack of a strong theological relationship between bishops and priests. Now, that lacuna needs to be purposefully and straightforwardly rectified.
